i wont be doing the ff just yet im more interested in just making it turn more at the minute only because one slightest turn of the wheel sends me into outerspace when im in cockpit view.
if it was more turns then i would have to remove the springs that are inside mine so it will just be free to spin but i dont want it turning to far and twisting the shite out of the pot.
Well, any set of cogs with a 5:1 ratio really and yes, you need them to have the same spacing between teeth - not sure what the "technical term" for that is, if there exists one...
i just took apart a lexmark printer that i was throwing away it has loads of cogs inside of it and i have another one to pull apart yet. i also found a motor. now how do wire that up to have ff
the smallest cog i can find has 18 teeth and thats quite a tiny little wheel but it will do so all i need to do is multiply it by 5 and see if i have a cog with that amount of teeth...
18 X 5 = 90 its a good job i can count i had trouble counting 18 teeth
the only thing im worried about is the how im going to stop the wheel at so many turns at the moment it has a big chunk of plastic at 180 degrees either side which i will have to remove to be able to turn the wheel past it but i need to stop it at how ever many degrees it will come out at.
Put a limiter on the large cog - that's the one that will be travelling 180 degrees anyway so just drill a hole and put a small screw in where it's centered so it'll act as a "stopper".
i think have two cogs here "from a printer" that i can make my wheel turn "1 1/4" turns in one direction so thats..."2 1/2" turns in total whats that in dergrees? oh duh 900
If you don't fit the cog directly on the pot and have a way of stabilizing it - like a stay of sorts - (pieces of aluminium and such could be salvaged off an old printer) - I believe it could be made to be quite sturdy.
I'd expect it would have a gearbox much like you'd find in a modern electric screwdriver for example, which manages to produce quite some torque with minimal energy consumption.
A cordless screwdriver like the Black+Decker small scewdiver ,
theres an idea for davey , all he'd need to do is open up the driver keep all it's gears in place and integrate it to his wheel somehow
B&Ds have a very neat gearbox, easy to maintain and keep together - I've opened a couple of their models for greasing/cleaning up several times. Infact, pity we're not closer by, as I got a dead one lying around that a pal had asked me to service but changed his mind in the meantime and bought a new one instead.
ok , but how to get LFS to tell the motor what to do? salvage a dfp? at that rate he's probably better off trying to repair a dfp than do all of the above
Well you need to make a controller that will tell the motor what to do in accordance with the standards for force feedback devices, there is online documentation in the DirectX API for such devices. If he enjoys making things and wants to have fun while learning he can pursue this, if he wants a 100% solution for a wheel to play with tomorrow he can go buy one. *shrug*
i will take some photos as soon as i get stuck and need help thanks so far guys
i have one cog on the wheel and im now about to remove the big chunk of plastic that is stopping my wheel from going any further than 180 degrees
i hope there is enough "give" in these wires going to the buttons on the wheel
whats our views on this...
attaching some fishing wire or similar "has to be strong enough" to a moving point in the wheel "inside casing" and then attach the other end of it to the casing so when it comes to being at the stop i want it the "string" becomes taught and wont allow for any more moving in one direction and then do the same for the other direction illepall what do you think?
i am pretty much ready to align the pot and stick it to te casing somehow and then figure out how to make the wheel stop befiore it hits the end of the pot stop pix coming right now
all i have to do is put the wires onto the pot, try and get a nice route for the big black wire for the buttons on the wheel and make some kind of stop for the wheel at a certain amount of degrees it dont even have to be 900 i think i can have around a massive 1000 degrees but i wont put it that high maybe 900 will bo ok i can go lower if i need to the black wire isnt very long.
i have figured out what to do with the wire after lookin at it for hours i am going to take them out of the plug one by one and feed it through the center of the wheels cog.
any sudgestions on how to make the wheel stop at a certain amount of degrees?
as you can see fom the pictures there is a small peice of alloy from a "pc tower" and if anything gets jammed in the cogs the metal will bend which is good i think as it may save my cogs from getting broken.
ok wires are done it turns freely and i am just about to test it but i cant get it to stop ie from center to left at 1 1/4 turns and to the right from center by 1 1/4 turns. if i turn the wheel to far the pot comes to a stop and the metal plate bends and the cogs jump out of place. so i need to find a way of making the wheel stop.
i had soem trouble withit reading ok then when i turned it so far the steering would get stuck i found that it was the case of the wheel pushing down into the top of the pot so after some aligning of the pot again and ripping off some of the plastic for clearing its all ok now...
BUT i rolled it twice in two minutes on blackwood
guess the price
havign as much accuuracy allows me to have very fast times on the oval with the bf1 but when it comes to trying to drift with the xrt then there is no hope. so....
i dont even think im going to buy a dfp there is no way in hell that i would even use the 900 degrees i can be confident enough to say that i would be happier buying a cheap one that has force feedback. so for the price of nothing i may of saved myself some money to.
i just put windows 2000 onto another hard drive (vista is on the other) now i get a message saying "could not display and suitable screen modes" directx 9 is installed what now.
i went inot dxdiag and it sais it cant do direct3d make sure i have the right drivers.
i looked on ebay for a wheel that has force feedback. i looked at one that said it had force feedback and then i read the whole thing about that wheel and it said "you can feel the vibration in your hand" so which ones have the motors for the actuall force ie turning the wheel for you and which ones just vibrate thats not what i want i have one of them and there shite.